Heretofore, broadcast programs for television, which are transmitted as satellite or terrestrial signals, for example, by a broadcast station, are received by receiving apparatuses in individual homes, while being concurrently with broadcasting, to be watched on a TV apparatus or the like. To watch the broadcast program, a viewer can play back a broadcast program that he or she intends to watch, which has been recorded on a video tape or saved as digital data in a PC (personal computer). In a method for recording broadcast programs as digital data, for example, motion pictures are compressed into the MPEG-2 (moving picture experts group) format and are saved in an HDD (hard disk) or the like within the PC. When the viewer plays back the saved broadcast program to watch it, the compressed data concerning the broadcast program is outputted as video and voice data from an MPEG decoder and is played back.
Meanwhile, when the viewer intends to watch the broadcast program, he or she selects a favorite broadcast program to watch it, from among a large number of broadcast programs provided from a plurality of broadcast stations almost all day, with reference to comments on a program schedule and so on. However, the comments on the program schedule are not enough for the viewer to determine whether the broadcast program that he or she intends to watch suits his/her taste. It is often the case that, after watching the broadcast program, the viewer has the impression that the broadcast program did not suit his/her taste.
An object of the present invention is to refer to evaluations made by others who have already watched a broadcast program when watching the recorded broadcast program, thereby resolving the above-described technical problems.